16 June 2009

Golden Century Seafood Restaurant: Chinese, Haymarket (14 June 2009)

This very large chinese restaurant has an impressive selection of tanks with live crabs, lobsters, fish, prawns and abalone. Tonight is a welcoming dinner for one of my Malaysian cousins visiting Sydney who's on holidays from studies in NZ. My dad spoils the family with a live lobster deep fried in salt and pepper which is shared amongst the 7 diners giving us a chance to sample the tasty meat. The usual pork san choy bow is substituted with chicken and is a generous portion and very nice served in it's perfectly cut lettuce bowl.

The fried rice with prawns (instead of the usual pork) is served in our bowls by the waiter and we back up the supply with steamed rice to enjoy with the other dishes. The Mongolian lamb is tender and the sauce in the Szechuan style prawns had a bit of a kick to it, but not enough for my Malaysian cousin's well trained taste buds. The two kinds of mushroom and vegetable dish was quite a decent size but I wondered why it cost more than a lot of the meat dishes.

At the end of the meal we received complimentary cakes, mandarins and a sweet potato and ginger soup which was quite refreshing and full of ginger flavour — I love free stuff. Around the time of paying the bill the waiter places a little sign in the middle of the table thanking us for our support. Quite a funny gesture I thought but I guess a nice one and probably signifies to other waiters we've paid and free to go? As we stroll out with our stomachs full we admire the full tanks of live sea creatures and wonder if we'll be lucky enough to feast on them again one day.

This is the first place I ate at on my return from Vancouver and oh how I missed it. If you go again, try the XO pips with rice noodles, salt & pepper squid and crispy skin chicken with ginger & shallots. Drool.

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Simon Leong

Passionate Sydney food blogger in search of the best dishes around the world and writing reviews to whet your appetite. Feel free to email me your recommendations of where to eat simonleong[at]hotmail[dot]com